Is this legal?

eyeinthesky

Op, you may get a little more help and advice here, and a lot more people in a similar situation. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/retail-loss-prevention/

These invoices sent out by Retail Loss Prevention, and similar companies, are a claim for damages / losses caused by a wrongful act. These kind of claims have been tested successfully in a county court, in Nottingham I believe, in the late 1990s. The costs include the cost of goods that are not recovered saleable, the cost of guards and management in detaining an offender and investigating an incident, and a contribution towards installing, operating and maintaining a cctv system. If it were not for shoplifters, then stores would not need these.

You have said you have reports from doctors etc., so send copies of these to RLP as well as to tkmaxx, and the letters should stop. As far as going to court, my own research cannot find anyone who has been taken to court by RLP, since the company was sold in the early 2000s.

If you just ignore the letters, they will send around 3 of them, then they will pass it on to a debt collector and they will pester you/her for a while. Hope this helps.

preciousillusions

I think the question that has to be answered is, would her daughter have taken the shampoo if not for her mental health issues? I think not. This was not a planned deception, it was a mistake. Those that are saying she should be locked up - i really don't think you realise what mental health issues can do to you. You can be a perfectly safe member of society but you can still not totally be /there/. When i stole i was out of it, completely and utterly. It's like you are in a bubble removed from the world and you can't get out. I knew i was stealing, yes of course i did, but it was not rational AT ALL, it was a feeling i did not know what to do with. Like stumbling around half asleep - infact sleepwalking is probably the best senario i can relate it back to. Look up depersonalisation and disassociation in the dictionary...a lot of people with mental health problems experience such things.

Not saying at all what i did was not wrong and that i shouldn't have been caught like i did, but taking me to court and putting me through all of that would have destroyed me. I was so so so sorry, i bawled my eyes out and was hysterical, when they caught me i 'woke up' so to speak and it was really bloody scary. I had no idea what i had taken or why or how i'd even ended up in that shop. But they could clearly see i was ill by one look at me.

I am going off in a tangent now, sorry. I just wanted to say that i really do not think those judging can really see how fully captive someone can feel by a mental health problem. That does not mean they need locking up, more like understanding.

pendulum

eyeinthesky wrote: »

These invoices sent out by Retail Loss Prevention, and similar companies, are a claim for damages / losses caused by a wrongful act. These kind of claims have been tested successfully in a county court, in Nottingham I believe, in the late 1990s. The costs include the cost of goods that are not recovered saleable, the cost of guards and management in detaining an offender and investigating an incident, and a contribution towards installing, operating and maintaining a cctv system. If it were not for shoplifters, then stores would not need these.

That is very interesting, and it goes against everything Crazy Jamie said in a previous post. After a bit of reading there does seem to have been some successes in court with RLP which is the scheme TK Maxx uses so it seems they might have a chance at enforcing this fee after all.

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/retail-loss-prevention/ is interesting reading.

pendulum

dfh wrote: »

That was one of the best lines I have read.It is sad that some people still harbour views that have no place in modern society.

Free speech is one of the most important aspects of a "modern" and civilised society, everyone's view has a place and should be able to be voiced freely, even if the majority don't agree. I think people who go around nicking stuff due to mental health issues shouldn't be allowed to continue, they should be apprehended and treated until they are well enough to be released, that's best for them and the general public, it's not an outrageous view that I hold, just common sense.

adouglasmhor

Some mental illnesses can't be treated possibly the effects can be mitigated though, for others treatment involves being allowed freedom to do things on your own and indeed would be made worse by detention

It is true that everyone’s view has a place but for some views the place is the dustbin of history. Free speech includes the right to have your views rebutted.

littlemissmojo

Dear All, Its me again. I just thought I should perhaps clear a few things up. My daughter is 28 and suffers from severe depression. She is not 'unsafe' nor does she need to be committed to a hospital for 'treatment.' She has depressive episodes and is treated wih medication that makes her feel very woozy for a while. All that happened in this incident was that she walked out of the shop holding onto a bottle of shampoo.. she did not put it in her bag... nor is this one of many incidents. She was extremely distressed about what happened those of you who imply that there is more to this story need to bare in mind that I know my own daughter and how difficult things can get for her and when I say I believe her I am in a better position to do so than anyone here. My original question was only is it legal for a store to request this money? Regardless of how these costs were incurred. They are asking for £82.50 for staff time, £24.75 administration fees and £30.25 for surveillance costs.. the cost of the shampoo as it was recovered is nothing. The exact details of what happened are not what I wish to have comments made on ( although why some here have chosen rather to insult a young woman they have never met as a 'metal' rather than answer the original question is a mystery and offensive in the extreme and I dearly hope that no one you ever care about is ever affected with any form of mental health problems.. which incidently affects 1 in 4 adults in the UK). Those of you who have offered constructive advice and help I am very grateful and thank you for taking the time to do so.

adouglasmhor

littlemissmojo wrote: »

Dear All, Its me again. I just thought I should perhaps clear a few things up. My daughter is 28 and suffers from severe depression. She is not 'unsafe' nor does she need to be committed to a hospital for 'treatment.' She has depressive episodes and is treated wih medication that makes her feel very woozy for a while. All that happened in this incident was that she walked out of the shop holding onto a bottle of shampoo.. she did not put it in her bag... nor is this one of many incidents. She was extremely distressed about what happened those of you who imply that there is more to this story need to bare in mind that I know my own daughter and how difficult things can get for her and when I say I believe her I am in a better position to do so than anyone here. My original question was only is it legal for a store to request this money? Regardless of how these costs were incurred. They are asking for £82.50 for staff time, £24.75 administration fees and £30.25 for surveillance costs.. the cost of the shampoo as it was recovered is nothing. The exact details of what happened are not what I wish to have comments made on ( although why some here have chosen rather to insult a young woman they have never met as a 'metal' rather than answer the original question is a mystery and offensive in the extreme and I dearly hope that no one you ever care about is ever affected with any form of mental health problems.. which incidently affects 1 in 4 adults in the UK). Those of you who have offered constructive advice and help I am very grateful and thank you for taking the time to do so.

Do you have a local mental health charity, like we have SAMH in Scotland they may able to help out with an expert or someone who can get this stopped?
As for the ones who are being harsh about it, they are like that because they don't understand mental health issues and it frightens them. They are more to be pitied than scorned in my view.

Mark_Hewitt

Isn't it similar to private parking tickets? i.e. They can only claim damages from you amounting to the money they have lost because of the incident. Which in this case seems to be nothing.

scullster

pendulum wrote: »

The shop is the innocent party in all this, they were the victims of a theft here, they then had their security guards retrieve the product outside of the premises and are now sending the thief the bill for the recovery.

Shops need expensive CCTV, security guards and security devices, and when a thief is caught red handed like your daughter was, they are going to try and recover some of these costs from her... rightly so.

But in this case, there are no actual losses to the business - the guards were already there, so to the manager and the CCTV. They could possibly argue losses in court as the manager and possibly a security guard would be called away from the store to give evidence and the shop may have to incur additional costs to replace them on the day.

pendulum wrote: »

Playing the mental health card is disgraceful in my opinion, it's not excuse for shoplifting, whatever next... if it was my daughter I would make her pay to teach her a lesson and be thankful they didn't call the police.

To be honest, IF someone has shoplifted because of their mental health issues, then far from that being an excuse to be let off, it should be taken more seriously, they should be locked up and treated before they're even allowed to share the streets with the ordinary public again, because it's not right that a mental person who doesn't know what they are doing can run free without respecting the laws and cause harm to innocent third parties (like shop owners and other members of the public). They are obviously a danger.

Pendulum - you're entiltled to your view but its out of order. My earlier post suggested the individual needs a strategy to deal with these situations, but to suggest they need locking up.........

dfh

littlemissmojo wrote: »

Dear All, Its me again. I just thought I should perhaps clear a few things up. My daughter is 28 and suffers from severe depression. She is not 'unsafe' nor does she need to be committed to a hospital for 'treatment.' She has depressive episodes and is treated wih medication that makes her feel very woozy for a while. All that happened in this incident was that she walked out of the shop holding onto a bottle of shampoo.. she did not put it in her bag... nor is this one of many incidents. She was extremely distressed about what happened those of you who imply that there is more to this story need to bare in mind that I know my own daughter and how difficult things can get for her and when I say I believe her I am in a better position to do so than anyone here. My original question was only is it legal for a store to request this money? Regardless of how these costs were incurred. They are asking for £82.50 for staff time, £24.75 administration fees and £30.25 for surveillance costs.. the cost of the shampoo as it was recovered is nothing. The exact details of what happened are not what I wish to have comments made on ( although why some here have chosen rather to insult a young woman they have never met as a 'metal' rather than answer the original question is a mystery and offensive in the extreme and I dearly hope that no one you ever care about is ever affected with any form of mental health problems.. which incidently affects 1 in 4 adults in the UK). Those of you who have offered constructive advice and help I am very grateful and thank you for taking the time to do so.

Unfortunately,there is a lot of ignorance about Mental Health and many people wrongly believe that you can simply lock people up untill they are "cured".Sadly,illnesses like schizophrenia for example are life long.If we were to follow to principle of locking people up untill they are cured we might as well go back to the anylums of the 18th century where people were incarcarated for life.And it is sad that such prejudice and ignorance masquerades as "free speech".